


très bien ensemble

by furiosity



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene, Pining, Retrospective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 16:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8998006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furiosity/pseuds/furiosity
Summary: In which Makkachin plays hide-and-seek, and Viktor Nikiforov finds more than his dog.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adevyish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adevyish/gifts).



> Merry Yuletide! This is just a tiny treat about Viktor's feelings. I hope you like it. :)

"Makkachin? Makkachin?"

No response. Viktor sighed. What was that dog up to this time? He'd probably learned his lesson about steamed buns, but it would be so embarrassing if he'd gotten into another guest's room.

 _Another_ guest. Did Viktor still count as a guest? Or did he just think of himself as one? Yuuri's family refused to take any payment for Viktor's lodging, since he was Yuuri's coach, but they still extended the same hospitality to him as they would to any guest. They didn't ask him to help shovel snow or sweep the entryway or help with cleanup after meals. 

Unlike other guests, he was allowed in "employees only" areas such as the closed-off wing he was in now. One of the room walls had been damaged in a recent earthquake, but there was some sort of bureaucratic tie-up with the insurance coverage. Viktor didn't know much about that kind of thing. He just paid people to handle all the boring parts of his life, like taxes and insurance. 

He'd told Yuuri that his parents should just hire a good lawyer to help navigate through the bureaucracy. Yuuri had given him an odd look and said that they didn't have that kind of money. 

And Viktor remembered being eleven and watching his mom cry because his brand-new skate blade snapped, and that hadn't been in the budget. He remembered Mom drying her tears and calling yet another friend of a friend to ask for yet another loan. He remembered trying not to cry, remembered thinking that he should just quit figure skating and become a politician or something.

Then came the coveted Team Russia spot, recognition, competitions, endorsements: payoff for all the hard work he had put in until then. The money problems were gone. His mom could finally do what she'd always wanted: plan his costumes and do his hair. At least until he started dating Oleg. She didn't want to have much to do with him after that. Even so, he had been very lucky.

To make money, a figure skater had to do shows and win competitions. Even then, the costs of equipment, training, and ice time were so high that most skaters saw little profit. Many retired with little to show for all the work they'd put in. People like Viktor -- with money enough not to worry about the future -- were the lucky exceptions. Viktor touched a partially-opened sliding door he'd stopped in front of.

Without this building, the hot spring, the warm hospitality of the Katsuki family, Viktor and Yuuri would never have met. Long before Viktor decided to come and help Yuuri take home the gold, the Katsuki family had supported Yuuri's passion for figure skating, nurtured his talent. Given the decline of tourism to the area, maybe they were only breaking even because the local ice rink let him practice for free. That's if they were breaking even at all. 

_Well, and his coach isn't charging him by the hour,_ Viktor thought. But they had talked about that, and Yuuri was quite adamant about paying Viktor's coaching fees whenever Viktor asked for them. Viktor didn't know how to ask for them. He loved Yuuri. Yuuri was dear to him, like family. He'd marry Yuuri in a heartbeat if Yuuri wanted that too.

 _But Yuuri doesn't see me as family, and neither do the other Katsukis._ He was a guest in this house: an honoured guest, but that was it.

He heard a rustle from the other side of the door. "Makkachin?"

A whine.

"So this is where you're hiding." Viktor pulled the door open and walked into a small room, daylight peering through a partially-lowered parchment blind on the single window. Dust danced in the air as he walked towards Makkachin, who clearly had no idea how much trouble he was in and was wagging his tail with enthusiasm.

"Come on," Viktor said, holding out his hand. "Be a good boy and let's go back to the main house, okay?"

Makkachin gave an acquiescent growl but didn't move. Viktor reached forward to take his collar and give it a little tug, and his gaze fell on a stack of papers shoved haphazardly into a cardboard box. The top one was a black-and-white newspaper photo of school-age Viktor with his book bag, taken soon after he'd joined Team Russia, captioned "Figure Skating Prodigy No Slouch at School". Viktor didn't remember exactly, but it was from one of the many interviews his mother had given around that time.

Viktor knelt down next to the box and took a closer look at the contents. An armful of rolled-up promotional posters and calendar pages, dozens of official autographed photos -- some in multiple copies, a scrapbook full of article clippings, and several notebooks full of what looked like attempts at article translations. Two yellowed Russian-Japanese dictionaries.

Were these Yuuri's? They had to have been.

Viktor had known for a while that Yuuri was a longtime fan, but perhaps he hadn't realised the extent of it. Was this why Yuuri had been so standoffish since Viktor's arrival? Was he trying to keep Viktor on a pedestal -- was that important to Yuuri as a skater? 

_I've been going about this all wrong._

Viktor got up, taking one of the photos and tucking it into his pocket. "Come on, Makkachin."

::

The warmth of Yuuri's embrace at the airport still lingered, but Viktor knew that if they didn't have this talk now, they would continue to misunderstand each other. He took a sip of his green tea and smiled at Yuuri, who smiled back easily. He'd been doing that a lot, and Viktor had let himself get too bold because of it. He drew out the photo he'd taken from the storage room and put it on top of the kotatsu.

Yuuri's smile vanished, eyes guilty-wide. "Where did you--? Oh no." He hung his head.

"Makkachin found it," Viktor said. It was a high quality print of Viktor as a child in shorts and a polo shirt, grinning, standing in tall grass with a butterfly net in his hands. "This was at summer camp when I was six or so. My first and last summer camp, since I started seriously training that season. A counselor took it."

Yuuri looked at him, uncomprehending.

"My mother was showing my photo album to a reporter who visited our home. I was off at school, and my mother got up to bring more tea -- while she was gone, he stole this photo and sold it for a lot of money later, after I became very famous in Russia."

Yuuri's hands flew to his mouth. "I'm sorry, Viktor. I had no idea."

"I figured," Viktor said. "You'd never have paid for a photo like that if you'd known. You aren't that kind of person, Yuuri. Your heart is pure."

"No, it isn't," Yuuri muttered darkly. "I-- I'm sorry. You must have a million creepy stalker fans like me. You don't have to be nice to me about it just because you're my coach."

"I'm not just being nice about it. It's just that seeing this photo made me realise how much of a fan you were. It couldn't have been easy to get this, and it must have cost you a lot."

"I had a pen pal in Russia for a while," Yuuri whispered. "Another figure skating fan. She knew how much I, uh, admired you, so she sent it to me as a birthday gift."

He looked perfectly miserable, and Viktor couldn't stand to just look at him like this. He crawled out from under the kotatsu and moved closer to Yuuri. Just as he was about to reach for him, he remembered why he'd decided to have this conversation in the first place.

"I knew that you were a fan. You've told me yourself." At the banquet, sometime after Viktor had already fallen in love. He didn't care. If he wanted to get really technical about it, if he insisted on dating people who weren't his fans at least a little, he'd have to date only those who never paid any attention to figure skating, and that didn't sound like fun.

Yuuri blinked in confusion, but Viktor pressed on. "I just didn't understand completely until today. Have you been trying to keep your distance on purpose, Yuuri, even though I've been sticking to you like a burr? Do you need me to be your idol? Do you need more space between us to skate your best?" _Please say no. Please say no._

Yuuri looked at him with tears in his eyes. "How could you even ask that now? I told you already, and I'll tell you a thousand times. I need you to be by my side."

Relieved, heartened, Viktor took Yuuri into his arms. "I will stay as close as you want me to, Yuuri." _Don't you cry._

"It was different at first," Yuuri said with a sniff, resting his head on Viktor's shoulder. "I did want to keep you on a pedestal. But I don't think it would have been possible even if you weren't so touchy-feely."

_Touchy-feely? Ouch._

"What if I strutted around the place like a peacock, yelled at you a lot, and refused to massage your shoulders?"

Yuuri snickered. "I'd like to see that."

VIktor tightened his embrace. _I want to kiss you._ "So why wouldn't it be possible?"

"Because I know you now," Yuuri said. "Not just the you everyone sees on TV. I know your habits and your pet peeves. You're not far away and unreachable, you're right here. You steal all the roasted chestnuts and sometimes snore louder than Makkachin."

"I don't snore," Viktor protested weakly. His heart was beating so hard it echoed in his ears. He kissed the top of Yuuri's head and breathed in his scent. _I love you. I love you. I love you._ Why was it so hard to say it? "Yuuri?"

"Hmm?" Yuuri sounded sleepy.

"Please ask your mother to make me shovel snow with you."

"What on earth--?"

"Please."

Yuuri shrugged and wound his arms around Viktor, snuggling closer. "You're very strange."

_But you love me._

_Right?_

The End


End file.
